Platitudes And Other Advice

Language is sometimes quite confusing. “Help yourself,” means I can go to the buffet table and pile my plate as high as I want with food that someone else has prepared. “Self Help,” means I have to figure out how to wheedle myself an invitation to the party.

As far as I know, there aren’t any books written about helping myself to food except maybe a few etiquette books which advise: “Spilling red beets on your host’s white carpet is not acceptable.”

However, “Self Help” books abound. They give all kinds of advice about how you can improve the person you happen to be. I stumbled across a website which gave “Everyday Life Lessons.” Here are a few suggestions they offered:

“Don’t think of cost. Think of value.” That is really good advice until the repo man comes a’ knocking on your door.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Albert Einstein.” Common! Albert Einstein! Maybe you can derive some satisfaction from that advice if you remember that those timekeepers removed his brain after he died. I prefer Albert’s advice, “Science=1 part work+1 part play+1 part keep your mouth shut.”

“Cultivate friendship like you cultivate a garden.” If I did that, my friends would die from overwatering.

“You don’t drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.” There is a difference between falling and jumping. One is a mishap, and the other comes from one beer too many.

“Negative feedback is love in disguise.” Or it just may be a mean person tap dancing on your self-image.

“It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.” What if you are a really rotten person?

“Some people are poor because the only thing they have is money.” Yes, but I am guessing that makes being poor a lot easier.

I prefer suggestions from people who really know what they are talking about:

Mae West said, “Between two evils, I always pick the one I’ve never tried.”

George Carlin suggested, “If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

And, my favorite comes from Stephen Fry. “An original idea? That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said, if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.”) Steven Wright

Meow! Meow!

Paula Poundstone said, “The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer.”

And, that’s about all I knew about cats until my son, Josh and daughter-in-law, Barbara went to work, and I was left in a house in the woods with their 14.2 pound Norwegian Forest Cat named Radar.

The word radar was coined in 1941 coming from radio detecting and ranging---an apt name for a creature who made a bee-line from the other room, jumped on the kitchen table, stuck his nose against mine and purred, ”I saw you take that English muffin. Share it or you die!” I knew I shouldn’t feed a cat anything that didn’t match the carpet, so I ignored him. At that, he jumped off the table and left for parts unknown. I didn’t know the meaning of rejection until a cat snubbed me.

Long ago, in some societies, people used to worship cats. I don’t know of any people, even long ago, who ever worshipped hamsters. So, I decided that perhaps I was missing a religious experience by not spending more time with Radar. After all, Sigmund Freud said, “Time spent with cats is never wasted.” But first I had to find the elusive creature.

Whoever said, “Dogs come when they are called; cats take a message and get back to you later” was right! I tried, “Here Kitty, Kitty,” but that cat wasn’t about to be called, “Kitty.” I did know two things about Radar. He likes to climb, so he can view a room from the ceiling, and he enjoys a good nap. I finally found him napping on the bed in the Master Bedroom.

Naps are always a good idea, so I went downstairs, turned on the TV (to the British channel) wrapped myself in a blanket and fell asleep on the sofa---only to be awakened by two green eyes staring down at me from the back of the sofa. Maybe I had commandeered his favorite blanket, or maybe Radar is an anglophile, but we ended up together watching Sherlock Holmes solve another crime. I knew I wasn’t allergic to cats and was relieved to discover that Radar, my new best buddy, wasn’t allergic to me either.

At the end of the day I decided that cats are very smart animals. They are certainly smarter than camels. I have never met anyone who’s ever tried to ride a cat.

Esther Blumenfeld (“If cats could talk they wouldn’t.”) Nan Porter

A Road Less Traveled

Philip Roth said, “The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”

After years of hard use, the street in our community went from bad to worse to non-existent. Where does asphalt go when it turn turns to dirt? It got so bad that even a chicken wouldn’t cross this road---no matter what was on the other side.

Consequently, since it is a private road, it was time to assess neighbors to pay for a new street. A few people didn’t want to pay for a new street, so, unsuccessfully, they tried to convince the rest of us that the cracks, holes and exposed dirt were an excellent example of street art that we should preserve in perpetuity for generations to come. And, after all, the potholes hadn’t swallowed any small children. Their reasoning came to naught, and eventually everyone paid their fair share.

The pulverizing, grading and paving of the streets commenced, and I discovered the joy of driving behind a very slow caterpillar tractor. Traffic went from slow to crawl until suddenly everything stopped with a thud. The roadwork was delayed because Comcast, the folks who lovingly bundle phones, computer, and television reception, had not buried their cables deep enough and some of the neighbor’s cable lines had been pulverized with the rest of the street.

The repair took a day and then the blue-staking folks arrived. As I understand it, blue-staking prevents big machines from digging up utility lines, hidden treasure and vampires. Now the road schedule was thrown off for two days, and neighbors didn’t know when they would be allowed to leave their houses. It was a scary time because we had been warned that driving on hot asphalt would not only melt our tires, but  would also permanently embed our cars in the road---making the street art vision come true.

I had some additional problems: the U.S. Congress had shut down my mountain, our street would be hotter than hell, I had thrown my knee out of whack and out-of-town guests would be arriving just when the asphalt was to be spread.

“Think outside the box,” I told myself. I could always hire a helicopter to drop my friends into my backyard, stick my knee into the warming asphalt for a heat treatment, and vote the bums out.

Happily, my knee popped back from whence it had been, and the road was finished the day before my company arrived, and I have decided to make my next vote really count!

Esther Blumenfeld (“The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.”) Charles de Montesquieu.

No Reverse Gear

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a pilot or a bartender. I was told that, “Girls don’t fly,” and my mother forbade me from becoming a bartender. It wasn’t the mixing of drinks that intrigued me, but I was curious about all those imaginative stories that I suspected customers must tell.

When I attended college, I wanted to write comedy for television, but was told that only one woman wrote for television.  Her name was Agnes Nixon and she wrote soap operas that weren’t very funny. Then I thought of having a career operating television cameras, but was told that I would never get a job, because I could never join the Cameraman’s Union. The professor added, “And you girls learn to type.” I took his advice and began typing my life-long observations---and eventually got paid for them.

Some people think life is a crapshoot and others think it’s a matter of choices. It’s probably a combination of both. I knew a successful salesman in Atlanta who struck up a conversation with a Japanese man while sitting in the Atlanta airport. The young man told him that the Japanese were going to import automobiles to the United States, and asked the salesman if he would be interested to have the franchise for the southeastern part of the country. The salesman thought to himself, “Who in his right mind will buy a Japanese car?” and he politely refused the offer. The young man was a representative from Toyota.

There are always decisions to be made when coming to that inevitable fork in the road. Hindsight can be an entertaining exercise when thinking, “If I had done this instead of that.” However, it’s a dangerous game when one says, “If I had ONLY done this instead of that.” There is a difference between wistful thinking and unreasonable regret.

In 1978, Berkshire Hathaway stock sold for $175 a share. Today the stock is trading at $175,852.00 a share. Now that is a wistful twinge at its best.

You don’t have to be a student of World History to realize in hindsight that---so often--- if humanity had zigged instead of zagged, the world would be in a different place---maybe better---maybe not.

It’s probably healthier to live the life we have today, rather than dwell on an imagined life built on unfulfilled dreams. As far as I know, there are no magic lanterns giving us go backs. Ah, there’s the rub.

When I was in Windsor, our guide told us that the Queen of England enjoys driving her automobile, “But Her Majesty is a terrible driver!” I often imagined that I would have had my 15 minutes of fame if she hit me. Think of the headline, “Tourist run over by the Queen.” Imagine the lawsuit! Wow! I could have had it made. Now that is some hindsight.

My friend, Al Fisher said something quite wise, “I’m actually a better person than I used to be, but I’m not as good as I’ll be tomorrow.” It’s called, foresight.Try it, you just might like it.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Hang on to the good memories. Have no regrets. Proceed”) anonymous

Watching Paint Dry

I complained to a friend about the agonizing process I have to go through while trying to get a production for my most recent play. She tried to comfort me by saying, “I read that it took one playwright 20 years to get his first play produced.” I replied, “I don’t have that much time.” Barbara Johnson said, “Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”

My mother used to say, “If you are patient when untying a knot, you will be patient with your husband.” Obviously, she never heard of the legendary Gordian Knot that was so impossible to untie that Alexander the Great supposedly sliced it in two. I think that is where the expression, “thinking outside the box” originated.

I agree with Dame Edith Sitwell who said, “I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.” It’s been said that good things come to those who wait, but I don’t want to wait so long that I’ll be too old to enjoy them.

Young people today are masters of instant gratification. They are the “I want it now!” generation. So how does a parent teach patience to a child who’s been raised on instant messaging and fast food dinners? And, does patience really matter?

In the 1960’s, a Stanford University Professor tested the will power of 4-year-olds. He gave them some marshmallows and told them they could eat one right away, or if they waited 15 minutes, they could have two---and then he left the room. Observing the children through a one-way window, he discovered that only 30% of them could wait. I guess they figured a marshmallow in the hand is worth 2 in the bush, and how long is 15 minutes anyway to a four-year old?

Over the years, he kept track of the children and found out that patience and the ability to wait might predict later success in life. Those who waited were more positive, better motivated, had higher incomes and healthier relationships. I wonder if he had a control group of children who didn’t like marshmallows.

Of course, hard work and patience can pay off in musical or athletic training---or when tackling any new task. My 84-year-old friend Fay brags that while patiently following the instructions of a new phone friend from India, she crawled around the floor under her desk, sweating profusely, while disconnecting and re-connecting all kinds of wires to fix the glitch on her computer. I think she should have bragged about getting up off the floor.

Steven Wright suggests that the next time you are stuck in traffic, miss a flight, or are waiting in line at the post office, be patient and remember that, “the sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“All things come to him that waits---provided he knows what he is waiting for.”) Woodrow T. Wilson